Raspberry Pi Gaming Console Made Out of a GE Alarm Clock

So, This Project was just thrown together, but it still looks great! If you notice while building this, I used so much hot glue. Bearly any screws.

So, The clock you need is "ge digital clock radio model 7-4612bka". look this up straight into your browser. (recommend trying to find one that is cheap and is for parts or something unless you plan to use the clock parts for something)

For the supplies you need, is

2 pieces of wire

1 fan (I used a junk fan that I had laying around. I would recommend you do a better fan but with this 12-v fan, I still get a lot of cooling!)

1 raspberry pi (For this project I used a rpi 0 2 w)

Get a long usb cable that will work with you rpi

(You don't really need this I used it so I could have the usb on the front of the console.) I used this USB 2.0 Cables - 6IN USB Micro to Type A Female OTG Cable | ShowMeCables.com)

I also used a mini-HDMI to HDMI for video output.

And of course, a micro-Sd card of any kind. bigger is better.

Tools:

Hot glue gun

Soldering gun and solder and anything else you want to help solder

And i cut all of the stuff out of my clock using metal shear cutters. This is what they are called online LOL

Micro Shear Cutter - Grainger If you want them.

Philips head screwdrivers

That should be it! Let's get started!

So first We have to pull everything out of the clock. I already did this a year or so ago Because i made a clock out of a 1980's polaroid. I was kind of able to skip this step and I just had to take out some more parts i left so now you should have something like picture #3. Where you just have a bunch of plastic. This is where things have to be very careful. We Don't want to break this case. Try to cut everything like I did in pictures #1 and #2 after We take out all of the stuff. we have our case.

Setting up the Pi's fan was super easy as you can see in picture 2, I was looking to see how I wanted it set up. Anyway, i soldered it to pins 4 and 6. Ground is pin 6. Pin 4 is positive. This is the easiest part of the build.

Heat up your hot glue gun. We must cut a hole big enough for our HDMI adapter to get in and for our power cables. After that I hot glued my HDMI to smol HDMI Down on the case. I glued my USB Micro to Type A Female to the front where I wanted it mounted (More on this in a second). I then glued my fan directly above the CPU on the part where the speaker played to keep that vent in use. (At Some point I Would like to get a better fan this one will still work tho.)

Next, I hand painted my clock with some matte black and some gold for the snooze button. I like black and gold, but you can paint it however you want. If you want people to know it was an alarm clock, skip this step. I bought the black and gold from the craft store. Have fun with this part! I would like to see your guys when it's done!

So, this part is going to sound so stupid but I think it looks good. I got a piece of cardboard and painted it black I cut it to shape to fit my usb extender and the case. I kind of like it. I am still going to find some wood or something better but for now it will work! I do not have a 3d printer, so this is the reason for the cardboard trick.

So now we take our Sd card, we need raspberry pi imager and a copy of your favorite emulator. image it to your SD card and you are all set! I threw Recalbox on there and played doom!

Thanks for building this project! It was very fun to make! And i hope you guys like it! :)

Cons

Fan is not super helpful with cooling.

The pi in general is not powerful enough but it was the only one i had lying around.

Wish i had something to do with the buttons on the clock but cant seem to get anything to work.

The thing has no weight but I can't really do anything about that.

Not enough usb ports. (going to post an update on that in a few days)

Pros

It looks awesome!

Can still play great titles like doom and under!

It has a web browser, YouTube, and more!